After the Cold War ended, Colombian
authorities and U.S. intelligence expected that the FARC gradually would disintegrate.

For poor Colombians, drug trafficking seemed a far more promising
route to social mobility than armed revolution. There seemed to be little pay-off in
following Marulanda through endless years of struggle in the mountains and jungles.

In 1992, to speed FARC's demise, President Cesar Gaviria offered
amnesty to all rebels as well as the right to participate in the constitutional assembly.

Marulanda, however, countered with demands for broad social,
political and economic reforms.

Given the FARCs international isolation, Gaviria chose to take
the offensive, striking powerful military blows against the FARC. But the aggressive
maneuver backfired, leaving the FARC less willing to negotiate and prolonging the civil
war.

Colombia also suffered an economic collapse in the countryside
driving even more farmers into the illicit production of coca. The middle class suffered
reversals, too. A long recession drove unemployment up to 20 percent, while interest rates
shot up to more than 40 percent.

Meanwhile, Colombia's governing class sank deeper into narcotics
corruption itself, with more than half of former congressmen indicted on various
corruption and money-laundering charges.

Government resistance to popular social reforms and military
brutality added to the public discontent while also breathing new life into the FARC.

The FARC benefited, too, from Colombia's lucrative drug trade, a
reputation that has long dogged the FARC as a guerrilla movement. Marulanda has denied the
charge for years, although acknowledging that the FARC does protect small farmers who rely
on coca cultivation for survival.

"The FARC wants to show the world and the United States as well
that it is not involved in drug trafficking, that it does not grow drugs, and that it does
not live off the drug business," Marulanda said in the Semana interview.

"The FARC is willing to invite them to come to Colombia and see
for themselves the reasons why peasants plant these drugs; to see, first hand, the
problems these people confront and why there is nothing else they can do."

As the FARC expanded its guerrilla
activity in the 1990s, the military increased its brutality. Parallel to the army emerged
paramilitary "death squads" that received training from the U.S.-financed
Colombian army. The paramilitary force, known as the AUC, committed massacres against
suspected FARC supporters.

The AUC's tactics were brutal. The paramilitary forces assembled
peasants in the main square or in a church, with men, women and children separated.
Suspected guerrilla collaborators were then picked out and executed on the spot.

Leading human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International
and Human Rights Watch, condemned Colombia's record for atrocities. The political
slaughter grew so severe that even the U.S. State Department, known for its tolerance of
anti-communist counterinsurgency, "decertified" Colombia for its human rights
record.

For its part, the Colombian government reported in 1998 that 194
massacres claimed the lives of 1,231 civilians. The AUC was blamed for 47 percent of the
killings, with 21 percent attributed to the FARC and three other guerrilla organizations.

Though eliminating many FARC supporters, the bloodshed deepened
Colombia's political polarization and undermined the government's reputation. In the
countryside, peasants came to see the FARC and Marulanda as alternatives to corrupt Bogota
politicians and their murderous henchmen.

Rather than fading away, the FARC consolidated its base of support
and became the effective government over large tracts of Colombian territory.

Marulanda and his "boys" were no longer seen as simply
delinquents and drug smugglers -- as they appeared in government propaganda.

They gained grudging respect as an effective guerrilla army with
mobile forces, military schools and sophisticated political training.

Marulanda adapted his ideology to the changing times. Like Fidel
Castro, Marulanda advocated a nationalistic socialism that combined social reforms with a
tolerance of small-scale capitalism.

In the Semana interview, Marulanda explained that it was
"the large capitals" that he felt "must be curbed. We cannot allow our
people to continue dying of hunger, without a home, without a car, without a roof over
their heads, without education, without health, while others have huge buildings filled
with dollars. No. That must be changed."

One of the secrets of the FARC's success was its self-sufficiency.
Unlike other leftist movements that relied on foreign support, the FARC built an economic
infrastructure that could sustain the movement indefinitely.

The FARC raised substantial sums of money from taxes paid by coca
growers in FARC-controlled areas. The FARC's drug-related income was estimated at $170
million a year.

But another lucrative source of revenue came from extortion and
ransoms estimated at $160 million a year. The FARC collected taxes on landowners and
industrial interests in exchange for protection of their businesses and their lives.

As the FARC demonstrated its
resilience, U.S. military observers grew pessimistic about the possibility for a decisive
government victory or even a satisfactory negotiated settlement.

The State Department opened talks with the rebels about possible
recognition of the FARC as a "belligerent force," a status that would give
Marulanda's forces increased legal standing under international law.

The Clinton administration began pressing both sides to take action
against coca plantations.

Facing the reality of a military standoff, Washington decided that
it needed the FARC's cooperation if any anti-drug program was to succeed.

U.S. officials and Marulanda shared the public goal of substituting
other profitable agriculture for coca production. In public statements, Marulanda
indicated a willingness to support such a transformation as part of a larger effort to
address the needs of the peasants.

"We believe that if the government wants to eradicate the drug
problem then it must first draft a development plan for the peasants," Marulanda told
Semana.

"That is all we want. Thousands of peasants need to produce and
grow drugs to live because they are not protected by the state. This is why we come before
the government to say, 'Mr. President, draft plans that will allow the eradication of coca
on the basis of alternative crops.'

We can get a group of agronomists, good agronomists, to tell
us what other crops can be grown in those areas. It could be rice, cacao, corn or
cotton."

FARC Commander Ivan added that other U.S. strategies, such as
spraying herbicides to kill the coca, will fail.

"We do not want drugs in our territory," Commander Ivan
said. "But we protect the interests of the peasants. They cannot survive on plantain
or coffee. They grow coca leaf to survive. The government then comes using illegitimate
herbicides banned in the United States a long time ago and sprays their plantations. This
only prompts the peasants to extend the agricultural frontier, and deforest an even more
ample territory."

For the United States, the
Colombian crisis has sparked new fears of regional chaos. Colombia borders on nations with
fragile political systems and important U.S. strategic interests.

To the northwest is Panama and the Panama Canal. To the northeast is
Venezuela, the largest source of U.S. imported oil.

Venezuela also has elected a new president, Hugo Chavez, whose
populist programs are worrying major corporate investors and causing concerns in
Washington. [See iF Magazine, May-June 1999.]

Meanwhile, in Colombia, Marulanda is fast becoming the aging poster
boy for all the aphorisms about the value of patience. He is at least proving the old
saying that showing up is half the battle.

For the septuagenarian guerrilla leader, time appears finally to be
on his side.

Andres Cala is a Colombian journalist based in Costa Rica who
has covered the Colombian conflict since 1996.